


Of Buttons, Tarzan and Road Kill

by Minka



Category: the GazettE
Genre: M/M, words of wisdom in fic form
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-04
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 21:14:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1564313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Minka/pseuds/Minka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>See, it all started when Aoi had missed a button…</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Buttons, Tarzan and Road Kill

**Author's Note:**

> Again with my odd spurts of inspiration and again with being somewhat intoxicated. Completely written in just under two hours, edited the next morning. 
> 
> Originally posted on 21/08/2008 @ http://minka-g.livejournal.com/54302.html

*****

Ruki looked his hands. They were the same as always, small and pale, soft and with well manicured nails. And yet there was something different about them. Something that was out of place and made him feel as if he were a stranger in his own body.

It was such an alien sensation of detachment that it had him utterly mystified. It was a good distraction too. Worked a charm in getting his mind to divert off on a different track other than that rocky one he was meant to be navigating through. Obviously Ruki hadn’t just gotten up out of bed in the middle of the night, leaving the warmth of a sleeping Reita to just sit in the bathroom – in the bath, to be exact – and stare at his hands. That would be downright weird and if that had been the case then even Ruki was sure that therapy and some meds were in order. 

Who the hell studied their hands for – he looked at the clock that Reita had put in the bathroom to help them actually leave the house on time – eighteen minutes anyway? Crazy people, that was who and Ruki may have been confused and he may have been scared but he sure as hell wasn’t crazy. 

The logical explanation was rather quite simple actually. He knew why he was unable to sleep. He was well aware of what had driven him from bed and caused him to lock himself in the bathroom at ten past three on a Saturday night. Well, Sunday morning but Ruki wasn’t really in the mood to be overly technical about it all. 

He knew and logically, he was just damnwell avoiding it and oddly enough, thinking about what he would be like as a crazy person was a really good way of keeping off topic. 

Buttons.

That was it. There, he admitted it to himself and even though there was some sarcastic voice in the back of his head telling him that buttons made him more crazy than hands, he at least felt like he had just made progress. 

Buttons. Well no, actually, it was just one button. One certain, shiny black button that was plaguing his mind. He could see it, all round and mocking with its semi-transparent brilliance. The way that it stood out like a little jewel against the landscape of its plain black, simple cotton shirt. 

Ruki almost hated that button. If it was possible to kill a button than Ruki planned to do just that. Maybe he could stand on it. Squash it with his feeble weight or if that didn’t work, he’d rig up something like in those comedy sketches and crush it like a bug with an anvil. 

No, Ruki wasn’t crazy for thinking about buttons in the early hours of the morning. Hands yes, buttons, no. 

See, it all started when Aoi had missed a button. That same black, snide little shit of a button on that very plain, cotton suit shirt. 

Even Ruki couldn’t believe that it was such a simple thing. It was a button for Christ’s sake. A fucking button and yet here he was sitting in the bathtub in the dark with only the light of the moon to illuminate the appendages that he was staring so intently at. 

Buttons and hands and anvils and hell, maybe a dose of meds wouldn’t go astray after all. 

It made no sense, not even to him and he was sure that Aoi was probably just as confused. Not that that either helped or hindered the situation. And then there was Reita and that whole dizzying feeling of confusion just picked him up, threw Ruki around a bit and them slammed him back down. Face first. Into a wall. 

Thoughts and conversations ran through his head a million miles an hour, zooming through like a speeding car while leaving nothing but destruction in its wake. 

The way Ruki saw it, the impending-doom conversation would go something like this:

“Aoi missed a button.” He would say, all tentative and shy while biting on his lower lip. Reita would give him that look, the one that said ‘that’s nice; I don’t give a fuck’ and Ruki would probably shuffle his feet a little. Dramatic effect, you see. 

“Aoi wore a button up shirt,” Ruki would continue, stammering on his words and most likely making no sense at all. But hey, he had to be heard so there was no other way than to just soldier on. “And he missed a button. So he came into the studio, early as always, and with this bump in his shirt. And being him, he’d walked all the way there and when I pointed it out he did that face palm sort of look and… well… yeah.” 

Fuck. Ruki sure as hell hoped that his verbal conversation would go better than this practiced one in his head. He was rambling and it wasn’t even like he was actually saying anything out loud. Really not a good sign and definitely no way to keep a therapist at bay. 

Ruki scratched at his knuckles and made a mental note of practicing that bit. Maybe if he wrote it down beforehand it would come out easier when the time came for it. Not that it was really the punch line but sometimes the back story was just as important as the point. 

By now Reita would either be outright ignoring him or giving him that look which suggested that he too thought Ruki needed meds. Again, this wasn’t sounding like such a bad idea to Ruki and the more that he thought about it, the more it sounded somewhat appealing. 

“I did it up for him.” Once all that other shit was out of the way, a line like that couldn’t be too hard and Ruki was almost certain that he would manage without tripping over those words. Easy. 

Besides, by now Reita would be so completely and utterly not listening that his response would be reduced to nothing more than a monosyllabic grunt or a, “yep,” at best. It would give Ruki that feeling that he could sprout out the worlds most beautiful poetry and yet still not be heard. Maybe even scream at the top of his lungs and threaten world domination using coffee machines and yet Reita would just nod and agree and continue doing… well, whatever the hell he was doing. 

That was the problem these days. Communication. Ruki had seen a movie once, funny thing about drugs and a reporter though he was sure that a lot of the jokes were lost in translation. But anyway, in this movie, the main guy, some famous actor, had been off his face and asked the question, _“Is there no communication in this car?”_ Obviously they had been driving at the time, _“Had we deteriorated to the level of dumb beasts?”_

Sure, he and Reita weren’t driving and Ruki sure as hell wasn’t stupid enough to bring it up when they were, but that quote somehow struck a cord with him. Maybe it was his subconscious telling him that he was on the road to life, that his little relationship was a car and that he and his partner were driving towards their future and fucked if they weren’t talking about it. 

Hell, to keep the metaphor going, it wasn’t even just a case of stopping and asking for directions. What was the point of seeking advice if the communication to convey the notion that they were in fact lost was severely lacking? Maybe it had fallen out the back some miles down the road and had since been squashed by a truck.

Just perfect. Ruki was stressing and unable to sleep and he was spending his time thinking about road kill. 

But hey, the whole point was that there was no communication in his and Reita’s relationship. Not any more. They used to talk. They really did. Talk about anything and everything; spend hours sitting alone and just chatting and enjoying each other’s company. Fucked if Ruki knew where that went and with the way things were now, he’d be happy to talk about road kill, vermin or any number of strange strings of parasites that effected small, burrow dwelling animals. 

So anyway, Reita would be thinking that Ruki had lost his mind and Ruki, for all his determination to try and deny it, would likely agree. After all, what was so odd about helping Aoi fix his shirt? Other than the sort of motherliness of it all, or the fact that Aoi had been stupid enough to fuck up a simple row of buttons in the first place. 

At least the whole road kill notion mixed with possibility of insanity and the need for zippered shirts would make it easier when Ruki had to say; 

“But then… well, then… after I did up his shirt, he… well, he kinda kissed me.” Reita would be listening then. Communication or not, that would grab his attention and hold it like a strong seatbelt as that figurative car speed up and smashed into a brick wall that just damnwell appeared out of nowhere. No, not a brick wall, a painted backdrop strung across the road, giving the illusion of their far off destination. 

Ruki could see it now. Reita would start to turn red. No, pale first actually. Ruki was sure of it. That was always the way with Reita though fucked if Ruki knew or understood why. But anyway, he’d go pale and his knuckles would go white as he squeezed his hands into fists and then the red would come. It would creep up onto his face like paint running the wrong way and get to the point where it looked like either his head would explode or steam would come out of his ears. 

And that was what Ruki was dreading. Well, actually it kinda wasn’t but it was a major part of it. Reita still had that somewhat manly possessiveness to him and while no, he wasn’t about to knock Ruki over the head and drag him back to his cave by his hair, he would be somewhat inclined to whack Aoi. And not necessarily in the general definition of the word. More like, gang whacked and then they’d be stuck looking for another guitarist and not to mention the press conferences. Even Ruki didn’t think that he would be able to bluff his way through such an event explaining the reasoning’s behind their previous guitarist’s violent death. 

Great mental scenario he had going there. Ruki actually shuddered and sunk further into the bathtub, especially as his mind took control and he started to continue the conversation in his head. Cause you see that wasn’t just it. The whole situation got even better and Ruki briefly wondered at his ability to have even his personal thoughts sound sarcastic. Surely that was a talent and he could just picture those thoughts, as if they were living, breathing beings in his head, rolling their eyes and crossing their arms. A foot stamp and a huff probably wouldn’t go astray either.

The best bit came afterwards. When Reita had grabbed his club and his loincloth – though Ruki didn’t know why the hell his boyfriend was suddenly looking something like Tarzan – and Ruki had begged and pleaded with him not to go ape on Aoi’s ass. Eventually Reita would agree, even if it was just to hold off on the throttling for a while and hear Ruki out and from there on in Ruki’s explanation would only get worse. 

Not that Ruki was about to go and tell Reita every second of the little incident. Ruki thought it best to leave out the details and by details he pretty much meant the entire encounter. Reita didn’t need to hear about how Ruki had regarded Aoi like he was an idiot and swatted the other’s hands away from his shirt. Aoi had chuckled, that deep, throaty noise that he made that was normally followed by the sound of him sniffing and then scratching the back of his head. Ruki found that amusing for some reason. 

Reita also didn’t need to know that once Aoi’s hands had been successfully removed from his shirt, Ruki had taken his sweet time in unbuttoning the three lower buttons before fixing the initial mistake. There was no need to tell Reita about the way that Ruki felt Aoi watching him the whole time, nor that such a feeling actually gave Ruki a little jolt of excitement. Above and beyond all that, there was no fucking sane reason this side of hell that Ruki needed to tell Reita about the moment, the briefest of all tiny, miniscule moments, when Ruki’s hand had brushed against Aoi’s flat stomach. 

That was when it happened. Lightening fast was how Aoi reacted and fucked if Ruki didn’t wonder how the hell such a competent man had managed to forget a button in the first place. But hey, once Aoi’s hands were nestled in his hair and his lips were on Ruki’s all thoughts were forfeit. 

Ruki had stumbled back, his lips opening in a gasp and Aoi had quickly taken full advantage. 

No, that was the wrong wording and Ruki mentally slapped himself for it. Advantage was such a nasty sounding word, like Aoi was forcing him or something; denying him a choice. Ruki had a choice, a clear simple one actually. He could push Aoi away and, ever the drama queen, slap him across the face and walk out in a huff. On the other hand, the other option – cause you always needed at least two options for there to be a conscious decision – was to open his mouth further and meet that searching tongue somewhere in the middle.

It didn’t take a fucking rocket scientist or a clairvoyant to work out which one Ruki had opted for. 

They had stumbled back – well, Ruki had and Aoi had somewhat clumsily stumbled forward – until Ruki’s back was pressed against the wall and Aoi was like a tonne of bricks on Ruki’s chest. Not that Ruki minded in the slightest, not even as the air was knocked from his lungs and Aoi’s tongue took complete control. The other man’s hands had gripped him tight though Ruki couldn’t honestly tell you where and Aoi somehow managed to find that perfect way to take everything in that single kiss and yet give Ruki the world at the same time. 

It was quite a skill really and had Ruki not been so damn worried about everything he would have found the time to be dutifully impressed. 

There he was digressing again. Long story short, it all came down to one clear, obvious fact. No, Reita didn’t need to know all that. All he had to pay attention to was the way that Ruki’s eyes would shine with clarity and truth as he said the only three words Reita needed to listen to all evening. 

“I liked it.” There. That moment right there was what Ruki was dreading. For all its crazy truth, for all the wonderful feelings that spurred up in him when he thought about that kiss it was still fucking terrifying, especially when he couldn’t even put his finger on when things had changed. Ruki’s knees had started to shake, he’d tightened his grip on Aoi and pulled the other closer and for all his solid, corporeal flesh and bone and blood, he had nigh on melted against Aoi until Ruki was sure that he was now a part of the other man. 

When had he lost his mind and heart to Aoi? Because fucked if realization hadn’t slapped him across the face as Aoi kissed him. Weeks, months, hell, even years of smiles, jokes, feather light touches and teasing all come flashing back into Ruki’s mind and like a pack of wild hounds, they caused havoc. 

The way they fooled around at practice; the very reserved, one-off moments when they indulged the fans with fanservice; days when Ruki would drag Aoi shopping until the older man was about to drop and simply insisted on having a late lunch afterwards. The way they’d sit there, Ruki surrounded by bags and yet Aoi with the larger smile as they talked – actually talked – about anything and everything. Music, life, hopes, dreams. The whole kit and caboodle. 

But again that was on a need to know basis and Reita, at least at this point in time, wasn’t on that list. 

The way Ruki saw it, the whole situation could play out in one of four ways. 

One. Reita would explode. His head would get that red and as his veins couldn’t pump his blood back down fast enough, he would simply explode in a sticky mess of brain matter and blood. That would be lovely and on a scale of one to ten, the press conference that the rest of the members would have to live through would be about a sixteen on the shit scale.

The second option was much the same, but with the roles reversed. And with more club/loincloth action. Reita would inwardly implode, causing him to lose his mind and _wham_ Ruki would be well and truly whacked and conference free.

The third was exactly the same as above with the exception of Ruki being locked in the house while Reita went off Aoi-hunting. Sadly, the press conference issue would still follow. 

The fourth option was probably the more likely and the one that Ruki really didn’t want to deal with the most. Reita would want to talk. He’d go through all those varying stages of white and red and maybe even a little green somewhere in the middle and once he was less inclined to smash heads, he would want to try and work it all out. 

See, Reita was, for all his strange antics, a talkative person. Shy, yes; camera whore, no. But with friends and loved ones, when the camera wasn’t rolling, you pretty much had to pour cement into his mouth to make him shut the fuck up. Of course then you had to add a bit of gravel and stir well, maybe aim an industrial sized fan to help it set but none of that was important to Ruki’s current thought process because it revolved around Reita wanting to talk and that not being the sort of communication that this relationship needed. It was too late for that anyway. 

Besides, what was there to talk about? The kiss? Sure, it had been fantastic. Unexpected but fantastic. How about Ruki’s thoughts and feelings on it? Yes, they should probably cover that and Ruki would repeat himself by saying that he liked it and that he felt positively about it. 

Ruki paused, his own mind humming thoughtfully as he reconsidered the term ‘positive'. That was the sort of word that would probably lead to head bashing which wasn’t on the top of Ruki’s wish list. 

So instead Ruki would say that he liked it and that he never meant to hurt Reita but he would greatly appreciate it if he could continue kissing Aoi.

Again Ruki stopped, this time using his alien feeling hand to rub at his neck. Putting it that way sounded like an open invitation to make this entire ordeal into a threesome which was really barking up the wrong tree. Ruki wanted just two – a twosome – consisting of himself and Aoi. That was all. 

Maybe it wasn’t best to talk about Ruki’s thoughts and feelings after all. Perhaps that was why beloved communication was lying on the road with a tire tread flatted into the middle of it. Opening up to Reita just wasn’t the same anymore. Words had less meaning, feelings were taken for granted and hardly ever voiced and when they were, they were scripted recitals of what they once felt.

At least that was the case for Ruki. 

Though, keeping the same scale rating system that Ruki was quite fond of at the moment, talking about Aoi’s feelings was probably even worse. That also fell into the category with the huge heading of ‘Reita so doesn’t need to know this’ which was bolded and underlined and decorated with little skulls and toxic sign scribbles. 

There was a simple, smart and well thought out reason why Ruki wasn’t going to revive conversation with that little breath of CPR air. That would no doubt lead into how the kiss ended, how they had stood there, out of breath and panting. Sure, a kiss usually ended like that no matter who you were kissing, but with Aoi there had been something different. Ruki’s hands had clung to the man’s arms, his fingertips pressing into that porcelain like skin while one of Aoi’s larger hands had wound its way around Ruki’s waist. It was planted in the middle of his back, pressed between skin and wall and the warmth that it provided was like nothing Ruki had ever felt. Well, that was only kinda half true as the real wonders came from Aoi’s other hand. It had found it way to Ruki’s flushed cheek, the long, calloused fingers stoking small circles and tracing invisible patterns there in a way that made Ruki practically purr. 

And fucked if Ruki didn’t want to tell Reita that standing there like that, despite knowing that he was hurting his lover and that they could be caught at any moment, had just felt so damn right. 

_Right._

It only got worse too. Way worse to the point where it bordered on seventh circle of hell stuff mixed with a toothache from far too much sweetness. 

It had begun when Aoi had apologised. Quick and rushed and fully breathless, he had blurted the words out while trying to remove his hands. His eyes had dropped to the floor, his shoulders had slumped and he seemed determined to get away from Ruki as soon as possible. Words were mumbled, things like ‘Reita’ and ‘boyfriend’ and that ever horrid ‘sorry’ came out in a string of low, apologetic murmurs until Ruki was sure that none of those words held any meaning anymore. 

And what had Ruki said in reply? That would be Reita’s question if they actually had this conversation and Ruki knew – just _knew_ \- that there was no nice, soft way to tell his lover that he’d said nothing. Instead he had grabbed those hands, thrown them in the general direction of his hips and done a wonderful impersonation of a cat launching at a mouse. In lame mans terms, he had jumped Aoi just as well and good as Aoi had jumped him the first time and what followed had been yet another battle of lips and tongues that Ruki was very, very happy to lose and Aoi was really pleased to win. 

God, if any of that came out. Ruki could see Reita’s face though he tried not to as he rubbed at the bridge of his nose with fingers that no longer felt like his own. The sides of the white bathtub seemed to grow all of a sudden, stretching up to the ceiling and closing him into a cold, smooth world of confusion and pain. 

Confusion because for once in his life he knew what he wanted but wasn’t too sure how to go about getting it. He was in that make-believe car, driving towards his future with the ideal destination in mind but somehow he couldn’t work out how to pull over and make sure that he was going the right way. 

And then there was the pain. Pain knowing what he had to do in order to make that car pause long enough for that directional prompt. 

You see, in the end it wasn’t the destination that really mattered. Even the journey only ranked in at second place. The important thing – the thing that really mattered once you were old and that tank of gas that you thought would never end finally dries up – isn’t what you did or where you went or how you did it. It was all so much simpler than that.

It was who you did it with; who filled that passenger seat and chatted to you to keep you awake for the long road trip ahead. 

That was where the pain came into it, strong and with all the stinging agony of reality. Because then, inevitably, the conversation would end with Ruki saying in a quiet but confident voice, “I’m leaving you,” and there was no way in the world that Ruki could predict what would happen next. 

All he could foresee was the hurt in Reita’s eyes and know how shitty Ruki would feel as he himself felt nothing but happiness. Happiness and excitement at the journey that lay ahead once he got the car back on the road.

*****

**Author's Note:**

> Cookies to anyone who can tell me what movie Ruki was referring to. 
> 
> As always, thoughts, comments and opinions are warmly welcomed.


End file.
